Matt Ridley explains how the CCP is using Cop 26 and climate change as a bargaining chip to apply pressure on the West – while the gigantic expansion of coal burning in China continues…”For reasons that are not clear, many western environmentalists are mad keen on China, despite its gargantuan appetite for coal, and won’t hear a word said against it.” – The Spectator

Oct 10, 2021 | News

Matt Ridley writing in The Spectator https://protect-eu.mimecast.com/s/vy0zC5QN5hmZQYouxkmTF?domain=spectator.co.uk

China’s President Xi Jinping has apparently not yet decided whether to travel to Glasgow next month for the big climate conference known as COP26….the fact that it is the 26th such meeting and none of the previous 25 solved the problem they set out to solve suggests the odds are that the event will be the flop on the Clyde.

One reason he is hesitating was stated pretty explicitly by his spokesman, Wang Yi: ‘Climate cooperation cannot be separated from the general environment of China-US relations.’

Roughly translated, this reads: we will go along with your climate posturing if you stop talking about the possibility that Covid-19 -started in a Wuhan laboratory, about our lack of cooperation investigating that origin, or about what we are doing to Hong Kong or the Uighur people.

The Chinese Communist party is using the COP as a bargaining chip.

To keep us keen, Xi announced last month that China would stop funding coal-fired power stations abroad. ‘I welcome President Xi’s commitment to stop building new coal projects abroad — a key topic of my discussions during my visit to China,’ enthused Alok Sharma, the president of COP26. ‘A great contribution,’ said John Kerry, the United States climate envoy. In truth, Xi is throwing us a pretty flimsy bone.

He did not say when he would stop funding overseas coal or whether projects in the pipeline would be affected, so the impact on the world’s coal consumption will be minimal.

And the gigantic expansion of coal burning in China itself continues. It already has more than 1,000 gigawatts of coal power, and has another 105 gigawatts in the pipeline. (Britain’s entire electricity generational capacity is about 75 gigawatts.) China now burns half the world’s coal.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, China is tripling its capacity to make fuel out of coal, about the most carbon-intensive process anybody can imagine. the gigantic expansion of coal burning in China itself continues. It already has more than 1,000 gigawatts of coal power, and has another 105 gigawatts in the pipeline.

Britain’s entire electricity generational capacity is about 75 gigawatts.) China now burns half the world’s coal. According to the US Energy Information Administration, China is tripling its capacity to make fuel out of coal, about the most carbon-intensive process anybody can imagine.

For reasons that are not clear, many western environmentalists are mad keen on China, despite its gargantuan appetite for coal, and won’t hear a word against the regime…

Even after China’s government slapped sanctions on British parliamentarians, sanctions against Chinese Communist party officials officials or the Hong Kong government are conspicuous by their absence…

After all, the history of these conferences is that they cost a fortune and attract tens of thousands of well-paid activists who talk all night and then announce something so meaningless they might as well not have bothered…

China’s leaders have long ago decided that the climate issue is simply something they can use as leverage with the West. A few minor announcements about more spending on solar power or less money for coal in Africa are a small price to pay for the West’s relative silence on human rights in Hong Kong, the release of the Huawei finance director in Canada and some easing of tariffs and sanctions.

It’s a double whammy win for China: it cannot believe its luck as it watches us closing down our reliable and affordable power sources to buy from them wind turbines, solar panels and ingredients for batteries for electric cars.

Currently, the Chinese strategy is to divide and rule: they are all charm with Brits and all snarl with Americans and Australians. The Aussies got slapped with trade sanctions just for asking for an inquiry into how the pandemic started.

The Chinese Communist party newspaper the Global Times last month let it be known that it finds Britain more amenable than ‘erratic’ America… In a forthcoming paper for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Professor Jun Arima of Tokyo University, who was one of Japan’s chief climate negotiators, warns that: ‘The divided and acrimonious world that is being created by net zero policies will permit China to further enhance its global economic presence and influence while the developed, democratic world becomes economically, politically, and militarily weaker.’”

China- followed by Putin and India- are massive polluters with no intention of greening. John Kerry is not correct with his laud for Xi.

Meanwhile, team Biden ponders selling off Strategic Oil Reserves. How much is in the reserves? Unless and until facts are stated about unaccountable/opaque China, Russia and India’s massive pollution activities, it is fruitless and useless to even discuss, let alone pretend that China and Russia will act lawfully, regarding all portions of global warming. Start with verifiable facts first.

Lord David Alton

For 18 years David Alton was a Member of the House of Commons and today he is an Independent Crossbench Life Peer in the UK House of Lords.

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